


L is for the way you look at me

by StAnni



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Established Relationship, F/M, Heavy Angst, Mentions Of Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 12:40:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17704436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StAnni/pseuds/StAnni
Summary: Love doesn’t spread like a meadow of flowers for some people, love doesn’t break through the clouds like sun.  For some people, for certain people, love rises from the darker crevices of the earth like a lava, and it spreads like poison – reducing everything in its path to scorched earth.





	L is for the way you look at me

It takes everything to get to the point where he can tell her, after knowing her for fifteen years since his parents died, 

Love doesn’t just appear like a banner above someone’s head. It’s not a glass slipper or a kiss. Love is something that grows and abides and survives over years. At least, their love is that.

There is a bitter, acidic year where he feels split apart and spider-cracked throughout. He knows that she is struggling too – and they don’t talk like they should, at all, they remain on the surface of things – resentment growing like stones tied to their feet, they let wounds fester and end up tearing each other down rather than pulling each other out of their respective darknesses.   
Somewhere in November she disappears without word – she empties out her small apartment, she leaves the floor to matt with dust.   
He goes there every day, allowing the hurt and hate wash over him – slamming his fists against the dusty walls.

Ten and a half months later he gets word that she is back. At that point he hasn’t been to her desolate apartment in months. At that point he has put the pieces of him that he managed to salvage, back together. At that point he can will his heart not to leap, not to rise up in anger or hate or love or vindication. 

He doesn’t go to her but waits on the balcony of his new apartment, every night. Until one night she is there. 

Their path back to each other isn’t easy either. They know too much of each other and too little of how the other has changed. A seemingly mundane disagreement about the political affiliations of the new district attorney takes a sudden and volatile turn and before either of them can really grapple any footing, they have regressed to the violent broken teenagers they once were. It happens occasionally and then as they learn to trust again, these fits of anger subside over months.

A year after they’ve reconciled, a few good months into their settled relationship – she stiffen under his touch as he rounds into the bedroom, his fingers only grazing her shoulder. He stops immediately and she glances at him, ignoring the fact that by now they are so acutely tuned to each other – it is impossible not to tell when something is off.  
“What’s up with that face?” She asks, finding her page in her book again and he watches her, waiting for her to look back at him. Which she does. “What’s wrong?” He asks and her face crinkles at his expression – as it always does. “Just stop with the severity, please.” She teases and looks away from him.

He lets it go but he doesn’t touch her again that night. In the end they are both just the same spiteful children he thinks as she turns away from him, her curls spread on the pillow. 

Things never go well for them. She mentioned that before she left the first time and a couple of times after as well. It is as if they are wired to implode but they keep on resetting and resetting those charges, suicidal in their obsession with each other.

Four years ago he was the one who hurt her. So when he sees her slip from Harvey Dent’s building, smoothing her curls down – it hurts like a dagger through his heart but it hearts even more because it is probably her turn to hurt him. Just the way it works with them. Tit for tat. Eye for an eye.

When she eventually comes home he is already in a blur of whiskey and she kneels in front of him in the dark sitting room, her hands on his knees. “How much have you had?” She asks and it is not accusatory or even tinged with judgment. It is just a question.  
If he had the fortitude to answer her, he still wouldn’t, and he regards her with a cold, distant gaze. The one that he reserves just for her. The one that he knows cuts right through her.   
They are both just two dangerously damaged people.  
She waits for an answer and raises her eyebrows to his look, yes – cut, and surprised. “So we’re not in the best of moods tonight, then.” She says and pushes up and off of his knees – heading to the whiskey tray herself and pouring a glass of liquid amber.   
He doesn’t want to start an argument when he is drunk so he gets up and leave before she turns around. They have all the time in the world to wade in their destructive cycle.

She does come to bed and her body is soft behind his back – her breath tickles against his neck as she whispers “I miss the Manor, don’t you?”   
He doesn’t answer but she doesn’t move away. She stays like that, warm against him throughout the night. Her proximity only highlights the desert between them.

She leaves somewhere before the sun comes up and he hears her zip up her duffel-bag.

Two days later she opens shortly after he knocks on the door of her old apartment. Her eyes are guarded and she crosses her arms, standing in the doorframe. “Ready to talk?” She asks and he nods, moving past her to go inside.  
The place is a mess, like it used to be and the cracks in the wall from years ago mirror his heart. She waits for him to start and this time he does, steeling himself and ready for the inevitable fight. “Why were you with Dent?” He asks and her heckles raise immediately “Why are you following me?”   
They know each other too well, have done too much to each other for there to be any grace left between them and he doesn’t take a breath to respond “Because I don’t trust you, Selina.”   
It is a familiar dance and it is sickening in its pace. “He has something that I need.” She says, defensively and he takes the bait, stepping into her space “I bet he does.”

She smirks and the thing about them, the thing that has always been true, is that they have never had neutral ground – the things they love about each other are the things they hate about each other. “You think this is funny?” He snaps and she nods, immediately, a wry smile on her lips “Oh, I think it is hilarious, Bruce. I find the fact that you are psychotically possessive extremely funny.” His hand whip up to her shoulder and she is fast, but not fast enough, closing her fingers around his grip just as it closes around her slight arm. “If you really needed something, you’d ask me. That much I do know about you.” And she pushes against him roughly, rubbing her arm as he lets go with a shove. “Is it about your mother?” He asks, almost hopefully, almost desperately, because that may be the only thing where she still keeps him fiercely at bay. She doesn’t answer but the fleeting mirth in her eyes at his grasping at straws grates him so viciously that he grabs her again – this time she gasps as the pain of his fingers digging into her. “So why are you with him, in his apartment, fucking him…”

She strikes him fast and hard. Usually he’d be able to deflect her but in his state of mind his reactions are impaired. The burn of her palm against his cheek is a shock and he looks at her momentarily before she tries to hit him again – eyes green and livid – but he catches her palm in one swift movement and holds it in a crushing grip. “Are you?” He bites because if this is the end, the world burns with him.

“Let go, Bruce” She says, almost breathless against the pain and he does, taking a step back this time.

Just four months ago he had found her asleep on the couch in his apartment – her curls still wet from an afternoon shower. When he touched her chin she had woken up with a smile – serene as the lakes of Switzerland. “Hey…it’s the love of my life.” She had playfully whispered, slow from sleep and the sun pouring through the balcony. 

“If you don’t tell me everything now, this is over, Selina.” He means it. He will pour out his heart, he’d rather be empty than not know what she is thinking, what she is feeling. When it comes to threats of leaving, he has heard every single threat from her imaginable – it has paralyzed and shattered him. But she has never heard anything of the sort from him – and he can tell by her expression that the gravity of his words hits her hard.

“If I tell you, it’s over, Bruce.” She says, evenly, gauging him, the waver in her voice just below the surface “So what do I do here?”

People who are as severely damaged as they are, people with broken parts, create monstrosities together. They were broken children, they are broken adults and they are incapable of making a whole.

“Don’t say anything then.” He decides, his heart beating grey and cold. It’s not an answer, it is a silent plea and she looks away from him, her eyes hurt.

Love doesn’t spread like a meadow of flowers for some people, love doesn’t break through the clouds like sun. For some people, for certain people, love rises from the darker crevices of the earth like a lava, and it spreads like poison – reducing everything in its path to scorched earth.

Some people don’t get happy endings, or endings at all.


End file.
